The race for the Philippine presidency was blown wide open on Thursday when a string of politicians in the key island of Mindanao – home to a quarter of the country’s 65.7 million voters – unexpectedly swung behind Leni Robredo. Robredo, currently the country’s vice-president, has been trailing her rival Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr, the son of the former dictator, in opinion polls and until now many pundits had assumed the Marcos camp could count on high levels of support in Mindanao – and particularly its Davao provinces. But those expectations were upended when the governors of Davao North and Davao South – Edwin Jubahib and Douglas Cagas IV – both signalled their backing for Robredo, who was campaigning in the province on Thursday ahead of the May 9 general election. And the blow for the Marcos camp was compounded when the North Davao Congressman Pantaleon Alvarez announced his Partido Reporma would no longer field its own presidential candidate and would switch its support to Robredo instead. Senator Panfilo Lacson, who had been the party’s candidate, will now run as an independent candidate. The news is likely to cause deep consternation in the Marcos camp, which will be scratching its head over the apparent loss of support. Marcos’ running mate is Davao City mayor Sara Duterte, whose father Rodrigo – the incumbent president – also rose to power on the back of strong support in Davao. The president’s PDP-Laban party this week officially endorsed Marcos. The developments will fuel speculation that Robredo can pull off a similar feat to 2016, when she beat Marcos Jnr to the vice-presidency despite having trailed him in the polls for long periods of campaigning. The latest opinion poll, by Pulse Asia of 2,400 respondents taken from February 18 to 23, showed Marcos leading Robredo – his nearest rival – by 60 per cent to 15 per cent. Robredo said she was “humbled and grateful for the overwhelming support … this is a frequent reminder to us that we are not alone in this fight”. Meanwhile Lacson, despite apparently having been abandoned by Partido Reporma, said he harboured “no ill-feelings to [the party or] anyone who may hereafter opt to join them in their new choice of a presidential candidate.” His accommodating stance won praise from Congressman Alvarez, who described him as “a rare gem” who had “devoted his entire life to exceptional public service”. Alvarez explained the decision to drop Lacson by saying “the electoral terrain in 2022 is far from ideal, and fate had other plans”. “We reasonably believe that the only realistic option at this point, with roughly a month and a half left, is to converge with Leni Robredo’s campaign,” Alvarez added. Philippine election bombshell as tax agency says Bongbong owes US$3.9 billion Turning point? Political risk analyst Ramon Casiple said he was not surprised by the turn of events, saying more upsets could be on the way. In addition to national positions like the presidency, vice-presidency and 12 of the 24 senate seats, the May 9 election will also see votes cast for the House of Representatives and all local posts from governor down to town councillor. Campaigning for the national positions has been going on since February 8, but campaigning for local positions starts on Friday March 25. Casiple said that it was the start of local campaigning that often marked the “turning point” for the national campaigns as that is when the true level of support for a candidate became clear. “The key to actually understanding Philippine elections is when local political parties and their networks start campaigning. If you don’t have them campaigning for you and their opponents are weak, that area will most probably go to the national candidates they are campaigning for,” Casiple said. A massive rally by Robredo on Thursday at the Davao del Sur Coliseum was actually a show of political force by the two governors, he said. Casiple said the fight between Robredo and Marcos was “following the same pattern” as 2016, when Robredo won the vice-presidency by a relatively slim margin of 263,473 votes. There is an upswelling of support for Robredo Ramon Casiple “If you look at the historical perspective, and I’m referring to the vice-presidential race in the last election, the surveys at that time – in the same period – showed that Marcos was leading her by a wide margin.” But when the local campaign started, Robredo played “catch-up” and “in the end she won the VP race”. While the recent Pulse Asia poll had found Marcos 45 percentage points ahead of Robredo, the company later clarified that it had only surveyed the three lowest income groups C, D and E and not the higher income A and B groups who comprise some 10 per cent of voters. Casiple said recent rallies by Robredo in Pasig City, Metro Manila, in Negros Occidental province and Cagayan de Oro City in Mindanao had all been “massive” and could have a “bandwagon effect”. “There is an upswelling of support for her, which is what happened in the 2016 elections. It will be more exciting now than before,” he said. Meanwhile, Sara Duterte announced on Thursday that the Marcos camp would be changing its campaign strategy from April, from when it would be “equal parts online campaigning and face-to-face campaigning”. Philippine election body dismisses petition to bar ‘Bongbong’ from election Studies have shown social media to be a strength of the Marcos camp. But Casiple said the change might be a sign the pair feared they were being abandoned by local politicians. “Local politicians thinking on their own will partly determine the outcome of [the presidential] elections. Many of them are now taking a hard look [at which presidential candidate would benefit them most],” Casiple said. One of the powers of a Philippine president is to decide when to release national government funds to which local chief executives.